Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
At Evie’s, I ignore all her questions and head straight for a scorching shower, but the water only leaves me raw enough to feel everything.
That happened. I tricked Alistair. I stripped. I crawled on the ground and told strangers my most embarrassing sexual experience in more detail, and with more truth, than I’d planned. I did exactly as Alistair told me.
And I was stupid enough to think it was worth it.
“No. We don’t have proof,” Evie says, pacing the living room while I remain a statue beside her. “Tell me again. What do you think is your proof?”
“I told you.” But I hadn’t. Not everything. “Nine guys,” I repeat. “Normal guys, playing games, reading a fucking book. Then Alistair walked in, and everyone snapped to attention.”
“They’re conditioned,” she says. “They’ve been trained to snap like that, maybe by the tests, and you need evidence. If he’s circulating guys every six months—”
“Except for Brad,” I say. “And the tests are definitely real.”
“Exactly. This isn’t evidence. It sounds like foreplay.”
My life is built on little lies, little cover stories, small corrections to reality that make it easier to stand in.
Even now, raw from the shower and hollowed out by what happened, the edit comes automatically.
Evie doesn’t need to know what I said in that room.
She doesn’t need the exact shape of what Alistair pulled out of me. It wouldn’t change her point.
I collapse onto the couch but feel even heavier once I’m down. “What about being forced on all fours?” I ask. “He got hard just watching me crawl around.”
“Did you get a photo? Enlist one of these witnesses to back your story? He rattled you. You went looking for proof and got none. He won the battle, got off on making you crawl around, while you forgot what you came for. But you can still make sure he doesn’t win the war.”
“But—”
The intensity of her gaze makes me wilt.
“I did tell you not to flinch,” she says, sitting beside me to rest a hand on my knee.
It reminds me of all the other fucked-up ways she tested me when we met.
“You knew how fucked up this would get, didn’t you?
” The accusation is as sharp as my tone, but I don’t care.
My rage has been stirring too long to keep it locked up.
“You expected this, while pretending you’d told me everything.
You sent me in with nothing but lies, knowing full well he was pulling the strings. ”
One deep breath sends me sinking into the couch cushions.
“Get yourself together. You’re undercover and inside.”
“I’m more than some flimsy cover story,” I say, my biggest lie yet.
I’ve been lying my whole life. So it makes no sense that Marcus Wilder feels more real than anything else. I’d built him to trick Alistair. I’d embellished Marcus Philips to get the job. Decades of lies are layered so deep, I can’t see where the flimsy story ends and the real me begins.
If there even is a real me beneath all this.
Her hand stays on my knee even as she dismantles me. There’s no doubt about what she wants: me on that island, getting the story.
“I don’t want to go.” My voice trembles. “You weren’t there. It was… wrong. Everything you said about Alistair is true. He’s power hungry, corrupt. The idea of being trapped for days on his island…”
I fold and refold the note he’d somehow slipped inside the building’s privacy gate before I’d gotten back, a shred of paper without initials or a name. It’s my only real proof, and all it says is: HWD. 9:00 departure. I’ll collect you. Long weekend. Everything will be provided.
“I can’t pretend to be neutral,” Evie says. “I’ve poured years of my life into this chance to see the real Alistair Blackwood. I was preparing for you. I just didn’t know it.” She cups my face. “Think of the guys in his orbit. Think of what this could do for you if you’re the one who proves it.”
I turn my head away from her grip. “Guilt-trip much?”
She stands. “I can’t honestly believe you’re second-guessing this. A private island where everything’s included? Sounds like the trip of a lifetime.”
“You know it’s more than that.”
She shrugs. “It’s three nights, Marcus.”
“You don’t care? All the sexual stuff going down? That doesn’t freak you out?”
She makes the sign of the cross in front of me, like I’m kneeling in a pew. “Hall pass extended.”
“Oh, thanks,” I scoff. “I wasn’t exactly worried about you while crawling on the ground.”
“So you’re letting him walk.” She plants her hands on her hips.
“You want to know why nothing sticks to Alistair Blackwood? He has money. He buys silence the way normal people buy coffee. One phone call, and a witness remembers things differently. An editor suddenly ‘can’t confirm.’ A story gets delayed until it dies on someone’s desk.
This man is what’s wrong with our city, with the whole fucking country.
He thinks nothing is beyond his reach, and you’ve tricked him.
He let a fox in his henhouse, and you’re just turning around. ”
“It doesn’t feel like I’m the fox.”
“Not Marcus Philips, maybe. But Marcus Wilder? He’s got the spine to take Alistair by the throat.”
Someone knocks, and I jump at the sound. Alistair’s voice rings in my ears: Jumpy.
Overtired and in desperate need of sleep, I exchange confused glances with Evie before she opens the door.
“Is Marky home?”
I recognize the voice.
Evie turns on her smile like a light. “Oh, Marky?” she calls. “It’s for you.”
How is this happening? What even is this?
I lean into the open doorway, and despite my exhaustion, seeing Jake makes me smile.
He’s wearing a gray tank top, exposing lean angles that are nothing like my muscles but fit him well.
In Evie’s dank hallway in the wee hours of the morning, sweat glistens across Jake’s skin.
My gaze follows the sheen down his shoulder blades to find where else he’s sweating.
No.
I’m exhausted. Too tired to think straight.
Then he looks up, that stupidly beautiful face a kind of sunrise for my gloom, and my grip on the doorframe loosens.
“Hi,” I manage, voice hoarse.
Jake pauses, concern flickering in his brow. “You okay? You look like you barely made it out alive.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah,” I lie, unsure who it’s for.
“Who’s that?” he whispers, leaning in to look for Evie, who’s hiding in the kitchen.
“Roommate.”
“You ready?”
Ready? Christ. He’s here to pick me up.
“Alistair’s downstairs waiting?” I ask.
Jake squints. “Um, no. He sent the limo. The other guys are waiting.” His grin returns. “I volunteered to come get you. You don’t really need to bring anything, but you can.”
He’s still perky, somehow. Now I can’t just disappear from Alistair’s game. I have to disappoint the guy who volunteered to come upstairs for me.
“Jake, I…” Rip off the Band-Aid. “I can’t.”
Jake grabs my arm. His expression falters, but he doesn’t look surprised. “You can. Marcus, I need you.”
My heart races, pulse misreading it as flirting before it catches up: he needs my help.
Either way, Evie is nodding aggressively from just outside his view.
“Can you…” I exhale. “Just give me a minute?”
I shut the door before he can say anything else.
Evie applauds silently, goes up on her toes, and stamps a kiss on my lips. My mind is still in the hallway with Jake’s hand on my arm and that awful, tender need for me.
“Get me some aspirin,” I whisper, already moving. “I’m going.”